近日论起高分美剧，定属《女王的棋局》（也称《后翼弃兵》），而令人惊讶的是剧集播出后，线上国际象棋热潮席卷全球，其中尤以女性爱好者为甚。这部剧集的魅力何在？有为何会有这么多女性就此“入坑”？让我们一起来看看吧！
现象级美剧《女王的棋局》
The day after Netflix's ode to fluidity "The Queen's Gambit" premiered, Google searches for the term "chess" spiked to nearly double what they had been the year prior. There had already been what Levy Rozman — an international chess master— calls a "pandemic bump" in interest, but the series has cemented the game's status as one of the "it" activities of 2020, alongside baking banana bread and hoarding toilet paper.
在网飞公司对《女王的棋局》首映大加宣传的第二天，Google上“国际象棋”一词的搜索量激增，几乎同比翻倍。在此之前，国际象棋大师罗兹曼所说的“疫情期间急速增长的兴趣”已经出现，但该剧集巩固了国际象棋作为2020年“特受欢迎活动”之一的地位，和烘烤香蕉面包、囤积卫生纸并列。
剧集名The Queen’s Gambit，即后翼弃兵，是一个国际象棋的开局战术，通常指主动放弃后翼一侧己方兵的策略。通过弃兵可以以较小的代价达到快速打开局面的目的，是一种充满攻击性和主动性的战法。
"I think it was the best representation of chess that you could present to an audience that doesn't know, or doesn't really think about chess on a day-to-day basis," Rozman said. "I tried to make an effort to see it within the first week, first of all, to get some content out about it, but at the same time, it was because I think one in every 10 messages during streams was, 'Have you seen it? What do you think about it?'"
罗兹曼说：“我认为对于不了解国际象棋，或是在日常生活中从没想过国际象棋的观众们来说，这部剧对其进行了很好的呈现。我尽力在播出的第一周内就看完它，一开始是为了了解一些剧情，但同时也是因为几乎每10条消息中就有一个是‘你看这部剧了吗？你觉得怎么样？’”
故事梗概——贝丝的成材之旅
The series, which stars Anya Taylor-Joy, "begins with nine-year-old Beth in a Kentucky orphanage, where she is raised after her mother's tragic death. There, a taciturn janitor (Bill Camp) introduces her to chess, for which she has an astounding aptitude. After her adoption, Beth's unique Bildungsroman begins in earnest as she travels the country and then the world to earn prize money at chess tourneys and seek the respect from mostly male peers."
该剧集由安雅·泰勒·乔伊饰演，故事发生在肯塔基孤儿院，九岁的小贝丝在母亲不幸去世后在那长大。在那里，一位沉默寡言的看门人比尔·坎普向她介绍了国际象棋，而她展现了惊人的象棋天赋。在被收养后，贝丝便开始了独特的成长之旅，她踏遍全国，环游世界，在国际象棋锦标赛中赢得奖金，并得到了男性同侪的尊重。
席卷全球的国际象棋热潮
Rozman began playing chess when he was young, too. "I played my first tournament when I was seven, and I've been just playing ever since," he said.
He began streaming instructional videos and chess commentary in 2018. It was a grind; he started with fewer than 10 followers and would be online from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. some days. Then there was a noticeable uptick in November 2018 when the World Chess Championship streamed on Twitch, and American Fabiano Caruana went head-to-head against Norwegian chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, who is one of the greatest players of all time. Online chess' popularity saw some ups and downs throughout 2019, then the pandemic hit, followed by the release of "The Queen's Gambit."
罗兹曼也从小就开始下棋。他说：“七岁的时候我参加了第一次比赛，从那以后我就一直下棋。”他于2018年开始发布教学视频和国际象棋评论，一开始十分冷清，他有时会在晚上九点到凌晨四点间上线，仅仅有不到十位观众。然后在2018年11月，世界象棋锦标赛在Twitch上直播，美国棋手法比亚诺·卡鲁阿纳与有史以来最伟大的棋手之一——挪威国际象棋大师芒努斯·卡尔森正面交锋时，他的人气出现了明显的上升趋势。线上国际象棋的流行在整个2019年历经起伏，直到疫情来袭，并在其后迎来了《女王的棋局》的播出，线上国际象棋人气飙升。
罗兹曼的收视人数激增，好像突然间每个人都想学下国际象棋，包括名流巨星。
"I gave a chess lesson to an NBA player less than a month ago," Rozman said. "And then I started experiencing 'The Queen's Gambit effect' a few weeks ago. I had a video called 'How to play the Queen's gambit' that I made on August 31st . . . It's now the most-viewed video I have. It gained 150,000 views in two weeks. My average for views was like 70,000 a day. I'm now at half a million."
“不到一个月前，我给一个NBA球员上了国际象棋课，”罗兹曼说，“然后几周前，我开始体会到‘《女王的棋局》效应’。我在8月31日制作了一个名为“如何掌控‘女王的棋局’”的视频……它成了我观看次数最多的视频，在两周内获得了15万次观看。我以往的平均观看次数每天约为7万次，而现在有50万。”
This isn't just an American phenomenon. Antonio Radić is a Croatian chess player who currently has the most popular chess channel on YouTube, with more than 805,000 subscribers.
这种现象不仅仅发生在美国。 安东尼奥·拉迪奇是克罗地亚的国际象棋棋手，他主持着YouTube上最受欢迎的国际象棋频道，有超过80万五千名订阅者。
"More people are subscribing to my channel than usual," Radić said. "I can't say for sure if it is related to the show, but a video I made on ["Queen's Gambit" character] Elizabeth's final game against Borgov [released Oct. 25] is already at 1.6 million views, so I would definitely say there is a connection."
他说：“有比以往更多的人订阅我的频道订阅人数激增。我之前还不能肯定这是否与该剧集有关，但我制作的有关贝丝对阵博尔戈夫的终局之战的一段视频已经获得了160万的观看次数，现在我可以确信它们之间有联系。”
鼓舞棋场上的“女王”们
Both Rozman and Radić also have seen an uptick in the number of women subscribing to and watching their content.
"Normally my viewership is 98% male, 2% female," Rozman said. "Right now, as we're experiencing this boom, it's now up to 3.6% female, so nearly doubled."
罗兹曼和拉迪奇的女性订阅者和观看人数都有所增加。罗兹曼说：“通常，我的观众里男性占98％，女性占2％。” “目前，随着剧集带来的热潮，女性人数现在上升到了3.6％，几乎翻了一番。”
Radić's numbers are similar. But as depicted in the show, women aren't a majority in the world of professional chess — not even close. As Emma Baccellieri wrote for Sports Illustrated in 2018, "women are disproportionately outnumbered everywhere, from youth competition up. Just 14% of U.S. Chess Federation members are female; that might seem low, but it's a record high, reached just this year. Most female players consistently find themselves surrounded by men."
拉迪奇的数字与之相似。但正如剧中所描绘的那样，女性在职业国际象棋世界中并不占多数，远少于男性。正如艾玛在2018年《体育画报》上写的那样，“从青少年的竞争到其他方面，男女比例总是悬殊。只有14％的美国国际象棋协会会员是女性；这看起来似乎很低，但这是今年才创下的最高记录。大多数女性棋手一直都在被男性棋手包围。”
That's one of the reasons that "The Queen's Gambit" is such a breath of fresh air. It shows a young woman dominating in a space that is historically male-dominated. It's also potentially paving the way for women and girls to become more involved in the game.
这就是《女王的棋局》令人耳目一新原因之一，它展现了一位年轻女性在一个过去以男性为主的领域中势如破竹、战无不胜。这也可能为妇女和女孩更多地参与国际象棋铺平了道路。
Jennifer Shahade is a two-time United States Women's Chess Champion, a Woman Grandmaster and author of the books "Chess Bitch" and "Play Like a Girl." She is also the women's program director for the U.S. Chess Federation and said, since the release of the series, her inbox has been flooded with messages about learning to play.
珍妮弗·沙哈德曾两次获得美国女子国际象棋冠军，是一名女子象棋大师，并著有《Chess Bitch》和《Play Like a Girl》，还是美国国际象棋联合会的女子项目负责人，她说，自该剧集播出以来，她的收件箱里堆满了希望学习下国际象棋的消息。
This is encouraging because scholastic chess has become more popular with girls over the last decade, but there is a sharp drop-off in young women playing chess after graduation.
这令人鼓舞，因为在过去十年中，虽然学术国际象棋在女孩中越来越流行，但是毕业后继续下象棋的年轻女性人数急剧下降。
"I'm seeing a big rise in the number of girls — but also especially the number of teens and adult women who are signing up for our various programs," Shahade said. "For example, we have 150-plus women registered for a combination chess lesson and book club Friday. And a lot of them are very well-known outside chess but are not really test players. We have writers, actresses, influencers."
她说：“我看到女性棋手的数量大大增加，特别是报名参加我们各种项目的青少年和成年女性。例如，我们有150多名女性报名参加星期五的国际象棋课程和读书俱乐部。其中许多人在其他领域非常知名，但不是国际象棋选手，包括作家、女演员和名人。”
Shahade continued: "So that's very exciting. I think that maybe that glamour from 'The Queen's Gambit' can create a bridge for people to maintain their interest beyond the younger ages, as that's where we have a lot of drop off. I think that's where we're really going to see 'The Queen's Gambit' effect."
“所以这非常令人兴奋。我认为，也许《女王的棋局》的魅力可以使人们在从青少年长大成人的阶段保持住对国际象棋的兴趣，这个阶段恰恰是如今很多爱好者对国际象棋失去兴趣的时期。我认为在这个方面，我们将真正看到‘《女王的棋局》效应’。”
编译：高嘉忆
批阅：陈雨昕
审核：赵寒旭
原文链接：https://www.salon.com/2020/11/13/queens-gambit-chess-interest-online-women/